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Thread: Kaboni W. Savage - Federal Death Row

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    Kaboni W. Savage - Federal Death Row


    Kaboni Savage


    Death for Convicted Philly Drug Kingpin?

    Federal prosecutors say they’ll seek the death penalty for a convicted drug kingpin charged in the deaths of 11 people, including six in a 2004 firebombing at the home of a man who planned to testify against him.

    Prosecutors filed notice Monday of the government’s intention to seek the death penalty for Kaboni Savage and two others. Savage is charged in 11 of the 12 deaths included in the lengthy indictment.

    Authorities say Savage ordered witnesses and rival drug dealers killed to protect a multimillion-dollar North Philadelphia drug operation. Authorities say he orchestrated the firebombing of the home of Eugene Coleman, resulting in the deaths of his mother, toddler son and four other family members.

    Savage is currently serving a 30-year drug-trafficking sentence. His trial is set for September.

    http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/...117998974.html

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    Philly drug kingpin goes on trial in arson deaths

    A Philadelphia drug kingpin and two others could face the death penalty when their trial opens Monday on charges they killed a dozen people.

    Authorities say Kaboni Savage ordered the 2004 firebombing of suspected informant Eugene Coleman's home, killing his mother, toddler son and four other relatives.

    Savage is already serving 30 years for drug trafficking. The 2007 indictment charges his sister, Kidada Savage, with paying for the 2004 arson in north Philadelphia.

    Jury selection has taken months at the federal courthouse in Philadelphia, in part because of the government's plan to seek the death penalty against Savage and two other men.

    Savage is already serving 30 years for drug trafficking. Authorities say he had witnesses and rival drug dealers killed to protect a multimillion-dollar North Philadelphia drug operation.

    http://www.phillyburbs.com/ap/state/...7e94dae8f.html
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    Dramatic Testimony in Murder Trial of Phila. Drug Kingpin Kaboni Savage

    A star witness, whose family was wiped out in a 2004 firebombing, was on the witness stand today in the federal murder trial of notorious Philadelphia drug kingpin Kaboni Savage.

    Much of 43-year-old Eugene Coleman’s early testimony centered on how he began as a teenage lookout in the open-air drug market at a 8th and Butler Streets in North Philadelphia, and how he grew to become a trusted Savage associate.

    Still to come is the inflection point — in their relationship and in the trial (see previous stories).

    To stop Coleman from testifying against Savage after Coleman was busted, prosecutors allege that Savage ordered the firebombing of Coleman’s family home in North Philadelphia. Coleman’s mother, his infant son, three other relatives, and a friend were killed.

    Coleman subsequently testified at Savage’s drug trial, and Savage was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

    http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/201...kaboni-savage/
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    Witness: Before firebombing, Savage vowed to “kill all the rats”

    Hours before his mother, infant son and four relatives were killed in an October 2004 firebombing in North Philadelphia, Eugene "Twin" Coleman unexpectedly encountered the man prosecutors say ordered their deaths.

    Coleman had been waiting in a holding cell at the federal courthouse in Philadelphia when U.S. Marshals escorted his former friend, accused drug kingpin Kaboni Savage, to a neighboring cell, Coleman told a federal jury this morning.

    Savage knew he had become an FBI cooperator, and knew Coleman was within earshot when he began ranting to another prisoner about snitches.

    "He's a rat, his mother, all of them," Savage said, according to Coleman. "Kill all the mother-(expletive) rats."

    Minutes later, the two men were waiting with other inmates in a tunnel when Coleman said he glanced back at Savage.

    "Then Kaboni grinned at me, looked and just went like this," he told jurors as he slid a finger across his neck.

    Coleman, 43, recounted the encounter during his second day on the witness stand in the murder and racketeering trial of Savage and three others.

    The day after that encounter, two men allegedly torched the home where Coleman's mother and relatives lived, killing the two adults and four children inside. Authorities have called it the most vicious example of witness retaliation in the city's history.

    The deaths are among 12 Savage is accused of ordering or carrying out.

    Already serving 30 years in prison for drug trafficking, Savage has pleaded not guilty. As they began their cross-examination of Coleman, his lawyers suggested others had reasons to retaliate against Coleman.

    Later in the trial, prosecutors are expected to call Lamont Lewis, a cooperator who they say will testify that he carried out the firebombing on orders from Savage.

    http://www.philly.com/philly/news/br..._the_rats.html
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    Lawyer hammers govt. witness at Savage trial

    A defense lawyer at the murder and conspiracy trial of drug kingpin Kaboni Savage hammered away Thursday at a key prosecution witness, trying to get the man to concede others might have been behind the October 2004 firebombing that killed his mother, son and four relatives.

    The witness, Eugene "Twin" Coleman, told a federal jury in Philadelphia this week that his relatives were killed less than a day after he overheard Savage, his onetime friend, describe him and his family as rats, and vow to "Kill all the (expletive) rats."

    On cross-examination this morning, lawyer Christian Hoey pointed to FBI reports before the attack in which Coleman claimed others in the Federal Detention Center had threatened him and his family. Hoey said Coleman told agents in August 2004 he was worried that Muslim inmates who knew he had become a government witness planned "a sitdown" about him.

    Hoey also cited an FBI report before the bombing in which Coleman said Dawud Bey, another imprisoned drug dealer with whom he had had past disputes, "told him they were going to kill his family."

    Coleman retorted that Bey was merely conveying the threat from Savage. He said Savage was housed on another floor in the prison but passed instructions through the prison plumbing.

    "Bey was talking to Kaboni through the (toilet) bowl," Coleman testified.

    Savage and three others, including his sister Kidada, face federal conspiracy and murder charges in connection with 12 deaths, including the North Philadelphia firebombing that killed Coleman's family.

    Authorities have called that attack on North 6th Street the most horrific example of witness retaliation in the city's recent history.

    Robert "B.J." Merritt, one of the men accused of carrying out the bombing, is on trial with Savage and, like him, could face the death penalty if convicted. The other alleged bomber, Lamont Lewis, is expected to testify for the government next month.

    Savage has been jailed since 2003 and is already serving a 30-year term for drug trafficking. His court-appointed lawyers contend he didn't have the power or means to engineer the firebombing.

    They say the government case is built on the word of lying drug dealers and other cooperators trying to save themselves.

    Coleman, a close friend and high-ranking member in Savage's drug network, spent 41 months in prison and was relocated and given a new identity under the federal witness security program. He was kicked out in November 2010, he said, for improperly revealing to someone that he was in the program.

    Hoey and Coleman sparred for nearly three days, with the lawyer repeatedly challenging Coleman's credibility and trying to portray him less as a victim of murderous retribution than a heartless drug dealer who repeatedly lied to authorities and jurors - and may still be doing so.

    Later this morning, one of Merritt's lawyers, Paul George, pointed out that Coleman sat through hundreds of hours of interviews, trial and grand jury testimony over a decade before he ever mentioned Merritt to authorities as a member of the drug ring.

    "I just answered the questions they asked me," Coleman said, echoing a response he has given dozens of times this week.

    The trial, before U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick, began in early February and is expected to last through April.

    http://www.philly.com/philly/news/br...age_trial.html
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    Hitman admits deadly firebombing

    A self-described hitman told jurors Monday that accused drug kingpin Kaboni Savage ordered him to set the 2004 North Philadelphia rowhome fire that killed six relatives, including four children, of a government witness against against Savage.

    In a crowded and hushed federal courtroom, Lamont Lewis calmly admitted carrying out more than a dozen murders and shootings in and around Philadelphia, including a few that were unsolved until he confessed to them.

    The list included the October 2004 firebombing along North 6th Street that authorities have called one of the most heinous acts of witness retaliation in city history.

    "Did you commit those murders at the direction of somebody else?" Assistant U.S. Attorney John Gallagher asked.

    "Yes," replied Lewis. "Kaboni Savage and Kidada Savage."

    The exchange came near the beginning of what could be days of testimony by Lewis, a pivotal prosecution witness in the murder and racketeering case against Savage; his sister, Kidada Savage, and two others, Steven Northington and Robert Merritt.

    Prosecutors say that Savage ordered the attack, his sister passed along the instructions and Merritt, who is Lewis' cousin, accompanied him and help set the blaze.

    Inside the home were relatives of Eugene "Twin" Coleman, a longtime friend and associate of Savage's who had agreed to cooperate against him. The fire killed Coleman's mother, Marcella; his cousin Tameka Nash; and four children, including Coleman's 15-month-old son, Damir Jenkins.

    Savage, who is already serving a 30-year term for drug trafficking, is accused of ordering or carrying out those killings plus six others, mostly of rival drug dealers. He, Merritt and Northington face the death penalty if convicted. Kidada Savage faces life in prison.

    Their trial began in early February before U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick.

    Lewis, 36, an imposing presence with a linebacker's frame and tattooed forearms, is likely to face days of cross-examination by defense lawyers eager to highlight his history of crime and violence. One of Kaboni Savage's lawyers, Christian Hoey, told jurors during his opening argument that Lewis called himself "treacherous," "homicidal," and "a stone-cold killer." He also promised to examine government recordings that he said show Lewis was being urged to implicate Savage, and that he complained to a friend that agents "want me to lie on somebody."

    Gallagher sought to blunt that as he opened his questioning Monday morning. He walked Lewis methodically through his plea agreement, one in which Lewis has admitted to 11 murders and knows he will get no less than 40 years in prison when he is finally sentenced.

    Gallagher asked the killer why he decided to cooperate.

    "Different reasons," Lewis explained. "So I won't face the death penalty. For the victims and their families. So I can show my kids that what I was doing was wrong."
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    Defense at Savage trial casts hit man as a liar

    A lawyer for Kaboni Savage tried to chip away Tuesday at the testimony of an admitted hit man who said Savage ordered the fatal firebombing of a North Philadelphia rowhouse, casting the witness as a homicidal liar willing to say anything to lighten his sentence.

    The lawyer, William Purpura, accused Lamont Lewis of changing his testimony about the October 2004 fire that killed four children and two adults, and cited prison phone calls in which Lewis said agents pressured him to cooperate.

    Lewis also told a friend they might profit by implicating Savage. Savage was already serving a 30-year term for drug trafficking, Lewis pointed out.

    "He already ain't coming the f--- home. You feel what I'm sayin'?" Lewis said during the January 2008 call. "It's all mathematics, baby. Plus, it's $100,000 reward money."

    Lewis, the most significant prosecution witness in the murder and racketeering case against Savage and three others, did not deny the comments.

    But he told a U.S. District Court jury that he was lying to family and friends when he suggested pressure by the government, because he knew the calls were being recorded and hoped to get agents' attention without confessing outright to the crimes.

    "I wasn't sure if I fully wanted to cooperate," he said. "I was weighing my options."

    Savage, 38, faces the death penalty if convicted, as do codefendants Steven Northington, an alleged enforcer for his drug ring, and Robert Merritt Jr., who is accused of helping Lewis carry out the bombing. Savage's sister, Kidada, faces life in prison for allegedly helping Lewis plan the attack.

    The firebombing has been called the most vicious act of witness retaliation in recent city history. The victims were the mother, 15-month-old son, and four other relatives of Eugene "Twin" Coleman, a former member of Savage's drug operation who agreed to testify against him in federal court.

    Their deaths are among 12 murders Savage is accused of ordering or committing during a decade as a drug baron in North Philadelphia. The trial began in February before U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick and jurors whose names are sealed.

    The firebomb allegations hinge largely on the jury's view of Lewis, a self-avowed killer who on Tuesday spent a second full day on the stand calmly talking about his own long list of murders and shootings.

    As part of the deal for Lewis' testimony, prosecutors plan to ask that he be sentenced to serve at least 40 years in prison, but to not seek the death penalty.

    Lewis, 36, was jailed on federal murder-for-hire charges in 2007 when he began considering cooperating, he said. Purpura highlighted a December 2007 phone call in which Lewis told his girlfriend's mother that a lot of federal inmates hope to get a break by talking to agents.

    "They'll say anything to these people, you know what I mean?" Lewis said.

    Days later, Lewis told his girlfriend: "The whole thing is, they want me to lie on somebody. ... That's how these people work, they set you up, try to get you to say something, then they let you go."

    That same month, the transcripts show, Lewis told another friend that agents threatened to prosecute his teenage son and stepfather in a bid to get him to cooperate.

    Purpura also cited calls in which Lewis appeared to dismiss Savage, whom he called "dude," as harmless. "Wasn't nobody scared of dude, you feel me?" he told a friend. "They was scared of me."

    But Lewis told jurors that he said that because he wanted his mother and other relatives to believe Savage wasn't dangerous so they would support his decision to cooperate.

    "It wasn't only my life in danger, it was hers," Lewis said.

    He also dismissed as "a mistake" a May 2011 grand jury appearance that Purpura highlighted as a contradiction in his account of the fire. On that day, Lewis initially testified that Kidada Savage told him the Coleman family house would be vacant the night of the bombing.

    "She told me there wasn't going to be nobody at the house at the time," Lewis testified that day.

    After consulting with prosecutors and agents, he returned to the stand and told grand jurors that Savage told him Coleman's mother and brother might be in the house.

    Lewis appeared slightly frustrated, though never really rattled, as he and the lawyer sparred for about five hours. When he could, Lewis repeatedly turned to the jurors to explain. He said he knew his calls were recorded and intentionally lied in those conversations to lay the groundwork for his cooperation.

    "I was setting it up ... to tell them that I wanted to cooperate for the government," he said. Later, he added: "That was my road to cooperation. That was the road I took. Was it the right one? I don't know."

    http://articles.philly.com/2013-04-0...ert-merritt-jr
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    Prosecution rests in Kaboni Savage murder trial

    After more than 10 weeks of trial, federal prosecutors on Wednesday rested their case against Kaboni Savage, the drug trafficker accused of ordering a 2004 North Philadelphia firebombing that killed the mother, son and four relatives of a witness against him.

    FBI agent Kevin Lewis, who spent more than a dozen years investigating Savage, was the first government witness when the trial opened and became its last on Wednesday. Lewis took the stand to verify secret prison recordings that prosecutors contend show Savage's deadly and relentless determination to retaliate against cooperators.

    "Their kids gonna pay, their mother gonna pay," Savage told a fellow inmate in December 2004, about two months after the deadly arson, according to one recording. "That's the kind of conviction I got for this."

    Later, he told his girlfriend in a phone call: "That's all I dream about - killing rats."

    After Assistant U.S. Attorney David Troyer declared the government concluded its case, U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick dismissed the jury for the rest of the week.

    Lawyers for Savage and his three codefendants are scheduled to begin their case on Monday. None have revealed if the defendants will take the stand, but the defense case is projected to last a week.

    Savage, 38, is accused of committing or directing 12 murders while running a sprawling drug network. He is already serving a 30-year term on trafficking charges but faces the death penalty if convicted of racketeering and murder.

    His alleged victims include the mother, cousin, 15-month old son and three other children related to Eugene Coleman, a onetime friend and associate who was preparing to testify against him.

    Each died when two men hauling red gas cans bombed their North 6th Street home in a predawn attack in October 2004.

    To put an exclamation point on their case, prosecutors played for jurors a tape secretly recorded days after the bombing, when Savage had learned that prison authorities would escort Coleman to the funerals for his relatives.

    Savage joked that the guards ought to stop first and get Coleman some barbecue sauce, "so he can pour it on those burnt (expletive)."

    His court-appointed lawyers have denied his role in the attacks and asked the jury - a panel whose names are sealed - not to be swayed by rambling jailhouse bravado.

    Also facing death are two codefendants, Steven Northington and Robert Meritt Jr. Prosecutors say Merritt was one of the two men who carried out the firebombing and that Northington was an enforcer who murdered a rival for Savage.

    Savage's sister, Kidada Savage, faces life in prison on charges that she helped plot the attack.

    http://www.philly.com/philly/news/br...der_trial.html
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    Defense Opens In Philadelphia Murder-Racketeering Trial of Kaboni Savage

    Witnesses were called to cast doubt on incriminating recordings and testimony from the prosecution’s star witness, as the defense for alleged drug kingpin Kaboni Savage began today in Philadelphia federal court.

    The defense’s first move was to impugn Savage himself — that is, the Savage who is heard in secretly recorded tapes vowing violent revenge on those who would testify against him.

    The tapes also catch Savage boasting about his lifestyle, including improvements he brags about making to a home in Northeast Philadelphia.

    The first defense witness was the home’s former owner, who went into great detail about the improvements she had made before selling the house — including all the items that Savage claims as his work — thus supporting the defense claims that the tapes are nothing more than rambling jailhouse bravado.

    The defense has also argued that witness and former Savage associate Lamont Lewis lied about carrying out murders on Savage’s orders, and called other former associates of both men to challenge Lewis’ account.

    http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/201...kaboni-savage/
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    Savage trial hears recording of kingpin's mother

    By Sulaiman Abdur-Rahman
    The Philadelphia Inquirer

    Drug kingpin Kaboni Savage sat at his defense table, bowing his head between his arms, as a video recording of his mother was played at his murder trial Tuesday.

    Savage, a former boxer accused of committing or directing 12 murders while running a sprawling drug network, blew his nose and wiped his eyes with a tissue after the 20-minute video concluded.

    The video was a Jan. 3 recording of Barbara Savage testifying about the events leading up to the fatal October 2004 firebombing her son is accused of ordering. Prosecutors say Savage ordered the firebombing as retaliation against Eugene "Twin" Coleman, a former friend and confidant who had agreed to testify against him.

    In her testimony, Barbara Savage said Kaboni tried to befriend Coleman, who she said was lying about her son: "There was a time I thought he was a nice guy."

    The firebombing killed Coleman's mother, son, and four relatives.

    Savage is serving a 30-year term on trafficking charges, but faces the death penalty if convicted of racketeering and murder.

    The trial, which began Feb. 4, continues in U.S. District Court as accomplices accused of helping Savage carry out the firebombing present their defenses.

    On April 1, Lamont Lewis testified that he firebombed the Coleman family's North Sixth Street home in a predawn attack Oct. 9, 2004, that killed six, including four children, allegedly on order from Savage in prison.

    Lewis, 36, confessed to 11 killings, which include the six firebombing deaths and several homicides that had been unsolved.

    Lewis said he decided to cooperate with the federal prosecutors to avoid the death penalty and "for the victims and their families. So I can show my kids that what I was doing was wrong."

    In her video testimony, Savage's mother recalled the night before the firebombing when Lewis rang the doorbell of the Savage family's North Philadelphia home and was allowed inside. While inside, he spoke on the phone with Kaboni Savage, who was calling from prison. During that call, Savage also spoke with his sister, codefendant Kidada Savage, his girlfriend Crystal Copeland, and his mother.

    Prosecutors say Kidada Savage passed along murder instructions and helped plan the firebombing. Her lawyer, Teresa Whalen, on Tuesday called a witness to the stand who testified that Kidada Savage played no role in the firebombing.

    The witness, Larry Harcum, 39, was in the Federal Detention Center with Lewis in 2008. Harcum testified that Lewis talked with him about the firebombing and admitted to being involved in the arson, but said Kidada Savage had nothing to do with it.

    Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Mellin aggressively cross-examined Harcum. "You know inmates often lie to each other?" Mellin said. "You don't even know if what you hear is the truth. Is that right?"

    Harcum agreed that inmates gossiped and didn't always speak the truth.

    Then Mellin told how Harcum had pleaded guilty in 2004 to gun charges, killed someone in a 2003 vehicular homicide, and was discharged from the Navy with less-than-honorable terms in the early 1990s, among other things to challenge Harcum's credibility.

    Harcum admitted he lied to a probation officer about college studies, but stuck by his main testimony: "I'm not lying," he said, "about what I said about Lamont Lewis."

    Savage and codefendants Steven Northington and Robert Merritt face the death penalty if convicted. Kidada Savage faces life in prison.

    http://www.philly.com/philly/news/lo..._s_mother.html

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